Early S&W Double Actions Part 2

The 1917 Smith & Wesson was a very rugged big-bore sixgun that was made even better by the arrival of .45 Auto Rim ammunition from Remington in the early 1920s. Every viable military firearm, except those that are fully automatic, makes it over into the civilian population and the 1917 Smith is no exception. Many shooters, outdoorsmen, and law officers were soon carrying a 1917 Smith loaded with .45 Auto Rim rounds.

Choices

Even by the time I started shooting in the mid-1950s, there were still plenty of 1917 Smith .45s that could be purchased at very reasonable prices. It was a very rare teenage shooter at the time who did not own a 1917 Smith & Wesson and/or 1917 Colt as well as a 1911 Government Model and a 1903 Springfield .30-06. Surplus ammunition for all of these were available at $1 per box. At the time, one week’s pay at a minimum wage of $0.90 an hour would get any two of these firearms and plenty of ammunition to keep shooting. No wonder we call them the good old days!

After World War II, the Smith & Wesson Model 1917 was modernized to the Model 1950 with the shorter action. It was available in two .45 ACP versions, one a dead ringer for the Model 1917 for the most part, while the other was fitted with a heavier under-lug barrel and target sights. This would be followed by the Model 1955 as covered in a previous article. Any of these .45 Colt versions are extremely rare.

Too many years ago at a Shootists Holiday, friend Paco Kelly gave me a Smith & Wesson 1950 Target .45 barrel, and a project immediately began to form in my mind. A Smith & Wesson Highway Patrolman .357 Magnum Model 28-2 in excellent condition was located and sent along with the barrel to the late great gunsmith John Gallagher.

What I wanted was a 5″ tapered barrel .45 Colt. Gallagher re-chambered the cylinder to .45 Colt, cut the barrel to 5″, re-mounted the front ramp and fitted a post front sight, tuned the action, set the single action trigger pull at just under 3#, re-finished the barrel to match the matte blue of the Highway Patrolman and I finally had a 1950 Target chambered in .45 Colt.

The 1950 Target barrels do not have the best reputation for shooting cast bullets so I was prepared, if necessary, for this to be a jacketed-bullet-only .45. I worried needlessly. It shoots jacketed bullets, hard cast bullets and — surprise of surprises — what I experienced when using Speer’s soft swaged 250-grain lead semi-wadcutter bullets.

This bullet should not shoot well in the shallow rifled 1950 Target barrel. In fact, I almost did not try the box of .45 Colt ammunition I had on hand loaded with the soft Speer bullets and 7.8 grains of Unique. The results were nothing short of incredible. Six shots at 20 yards gave one ragged hole with this load at a respectable, though very easy shooting, 770 fps. Every load I have tried shoots exceptionally well in this Gallagher Gun and it is one of my favorite Compromise Double Action Sixguns.

Two of the finest shooting compromise Smith & Wessons are the 5″, heavy barrel, stainless steel Model 625s in .45 ACP and .45 Colt. These came about in the late 1980s and still remain excellent shooting sixguns today. Fitted with custom stocks, they are about as close to perfection as one can get.
The proliferation of compromise Smith & Wesson Sixguns actually began with the .38/44 Heavy Duty which was mostly seen with a 5″ barrel. This was a true heavy duty sixgun able to handle the heaviest .38 Special loads and was a natural for a new cartridge.

.357 Game Changer

In 1935, Smith & Wesson introduced the .357 Magnum. Skeeter Skelton’s favorite sixgun was a 5″ version and it doesn’t take much shooting to find out exactly why he felt this way. It would also be my first choice of any of the Smith & Wesson sixguns as it is an accurate-shooting sixgun and so versatile, being able to handle anything from .38 Special Wadcutters up to and including the .357 Magnum loads assembled with 180- and 200-grain gas check bullets.
The 5″ Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum is a very rare sixgun. In the mid-1950s, the standard barrel lengths offered were 4″, 6 ½”, and 8 ⅜”. HH Harris, a distributor, ordered 500 .44 Magnums in this barrel length. I had wanted one for a long time so I sent an 8 ⅜” version to Jim Stroh to be cut to 5″ and a new front sight fitted.

As luck would have it, after sending it off I got a call from a reader who had been at the S&W factory and saw an original 5″ barrel there and he thoughtfully told them to put my name on it. I could have the barrel but S&W would only sell it to me if I sent them a .44 Magnum to have that barrel fitted to it. No problem! Now I have two excellent .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson sixguns.

Over the years I have shot thousands upon thousands of .44 Special loads, many of them in Smith & Wesson early double action sixguns. These include 2nd, 3rd and 4th Model Hand Ejectors. About 50 years ago I turned over a Model 1950 Target Barrel along with a 1950 fixed-sighted .44 Special and gunsmith George Hoenig turned it into a 5″ Target sighted 1950 Model. Today it remains an excellent shooter.

Even in this third decade of the thoroughly modern 21st-century — complete with AKs, ARs and all manner of polymer pistols — the 1917/1950 Smith & Wesson, which is basically now nearly almost 100 years old, is still a most viable self-defense sixgun when loaded with either .45 Auto Rim cartridges or a full-moon clip holding six .45 ACP rounds. Back the sixgun up with a couple of fully-loaded full-moon clips in the pocket and one is on pretty sound footing.

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